Toasted Coconut Almond Cashew Butter

Hey everyone! Hope you all had a great holiday! We had a really nice Christmas, it was low-key but filled with family, friends and great food, overall the perfect little break. We came back from NH yesterday, walked in the door and realized that we could see our breath in the house (not a good sign). After a few attempts to get the furnace working, we concluded that our boiler had shit the bed and our house was a balmy 42 degrees. Yay! Exactly what you want to come home to! Nothing like coming home to a disaster 🙂

We’ve been huddled around some space heaters and snuggling up with our slippers and sweatshirts to stay warm. Fortunately the space heaters have been doing a pretty good job and it’s not incredibly cold out so we’ve been managing just fine, I feel so bad for the people in NJ & NY who had to deal with this AND no power! It’s rough!

Anyhow, we’re waiting to see whether there is any way to fix it without replacing the whole thing so hopefully we’ll figure out the situation soon and we can get our warm cozy house back.

Ok, enough complaining. Let’s talk about the fun part of our vacation.

We woke up Christmas morning to big fluffy snowflakes falling and coating the trees. It was absolutely perfect and so beautiful! We were grateful to have the White Christmas we were hoping for.

Santa visited and he was extremely generous as always!

Tom & Ian both got new guitars this year so they had fun learning their first few chords together, it was fun to watch (even if I got some pretty annoying songs stuck in my head for the rest of the day).

There was lots of talking, laughing & great eats!

It’s funny how our days always seem to revolve around the meals. The second we’re done with one, we’re busy planning the next. Holidays are fun that way 🙂

I’m going to have to do a little detox and get back to my healthy eating soon, I’ve been a bad girl!!

So let’s move on to this awesome Almond Cashew butter recipe. If you don’t make your own nut butter and you own a food processor, I highly recommend you start doing so. It tastes so amazing, you can control the ingredients, and I think it might actually be cheaper.

It’s really quite simple.

I like to start by tossing the nuts in a little honey with some other good stuff like chia seeds or ground flax (and in this case some shredded coconut).

Then lay them out on a cookie sheet in a single layer and roast for 15 minutes.

Blend in a food processor for about 15 minutes until you end up with a nice creamy butter. BENEFIT: if you lick the bowl and the spoon, you will be so full you’ll be able to skip your next meal. Seriously, it’s so weird.

I’m sad the holidays are over (especially sad about the Christmas music) but I’m looking forward to starting a new year fresh! 2013: LET’S DO THIS!!

I am a midwife and am trying to get a nice collection of recipes on our website that are healthy and simple and appealing to families with small kids…like this recipe!

I’d like to encourage you to submit it (and as many others as you like) to our recipe contest. If we post your recipe(s) on our site (which will if you submit them…your recipes are awesome), we will post not only your name as you enter it but also a link to your blog.

Each recipe you enter earns you the chance to win a $50 gift certificate to a local restaurant of your choice. (Local = where you live, and locally owned, not some big chain) For full details on the contest, click here:

I just made this without roasting anything. Raw almonds, cashews were already roasted, and I did not use chia seeds, coconut extract, or honey. I did however have some walnuts on hand also and threw those in. Absolutely amazing. Thanks for the idea.